Tents are stand-alone fabric and pole housing structures which are typically used for camping outdoors, play, temporary lodging, or storage. Tents come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. While most tents form only a single room, multi-room or multi-compartment tents are also known. Tents may accommodate various accessories which are intended to expand the tents' functionality. For example, some tent models include alcoves, canopies, and the like. When compared to more permanent housing structures, tents are inexpensive, lightweight, easily assembled, easily disassembled, and easily stored when disassembled. In short, tents are temporary, portable structures of varying designs and having many uses.
While the existing tent art may be able to suggest a particular tent structure to meet a particular tent need, finding tent structures which meet a variety of tent needs is a serious problem. Of course, one could acquire a variety of tents to meet a variety of tent needs, but this is an undesirably expensive and complicated solution which requires an extensive amount of storage space for tents which are not being used. Accordingly, a need exists for a flexible tent system which meets a variety of tent needs at a reasonable cost and without unduly wasting storage space.
For example, a family or other group of tent occupants may require a tent of one size on one occasion and a tent of another size on another occasion. Or, a family or other group may need one tent for a child's play tent and another tent for family camping. Or, a family or other group may need the individual privacy afforded by separate tents along with the closeness, convenience, security, comfort, and collective privacy achieved by a single tent.
In accordance with prior art tent systems, a group of tent occupants may be forced to have a small tent for one occasion, and one or more larger tents for other occasions. This is an undesirable solution because of the unnecessary expense and excessive storage space required for tents which serve tent needs only on particular occasions. Alteratively, prior art tent systems may force the group to use a variety of tents. However, this is also an undesirable solution because separate tents do not afford the same degree of closeness as a single tent. Moreover, as users travel between diverse separate tents, they do not experience the same degree of privacy and comfort that can be achieved within a single tent.